USA: the CIA under accusation for 9/11

Following the revelations of a number of secret US documents regarding secret war projects and more, which further undermine the credibility of the Biden administration, another scandal has now emerged that sees the FBI and the CIA in a head-on collision.

Very heavy suspicions about the possible collusions between the CIA and some responsible for the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 have emerged for some time in the folds of official investigations. According to these documents, two of the hijackers had possibly been recruited by Langley's own agency as part of an ultra-secret operation conducted together with the Saudi secret services. The link had come to the attention of FBI investigators after the events of 2001, but the investigation had been covered up by the intervention of senior CIA officials and the "Bureau" itself.

The new elements are contained in the deposition report by Don Canestraro, investigator of the Office of Military Commissions, that is, the legal body that presides over the cases of those accused of the events of 11 September. The twenty-page statement summarizes the interrogations conducted by Canestraro with anonymous FBI and CIA agents as part of the investigation, as well as citing secret government documents relating to the FBI's "Encore" operation, launched to discover the possible involvement of Saudi Arabia in the attacks and stopped in 2016. The latest revelations were largely ignored by the official press, but found space in independent publications.

For example, The Grayzone Project website gave an exhaustive account of the new burning elements, which briefly summarizes the story of the CIA unit called "Alec Station" involved in the alleged recruitment operation of Saudi nationals Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al -Mihdhar. This section of the agency was created in 1996 with the precise task of tracking the movements of Osama bin Laden and his most trusted men within al-Qaeda. All in close collaboration with the FBI, even if the US federal police agents had immediately found themselves dealing with heavy restrictions, especially as regards the passage of information to their superiors. An alert for a possible attack large-scale terrorist attack on American territory had taken place in late 1999, when the CIA and the NSA (National Security Agency) were monitoring an al-Qaeda cell that included Hazmi and Mihdhar, a couple of years later at the controls of the American Airlines Flight 77 that allegedly crashed into the Pentagon. Both had attended an al-Qaeda meeting in early January 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The summit had been secretly recorded by local authorities at the request of CIA unit Alec Station.

American agents had later photographed the passports of the two Saudis in a hotel room in Dubai, where they were staying overnight during a stopover on a flight to the United States. Hazmi and Mihdhar had entry visas for America. However, this information was not passed on to the FBI outside of Alec Station, but members of this section were prohibited from breaking the news to their superiors. The official reason, says an FBI agent involved in the operations, was that the case was outside the jurisdiction of the "Bureau". The CIA men had threatened repercussions on the careers of the FBI agents if they contravened the directive. Hazmi and Mihdhar were thus able to enter the United States undisturbed, landing on January 15, 2000 at Los Angeles International Airport. In an airport restaurant, the two were greeted by the "ghost official" of the Saudi government, Omar al-Bayoumi, who immediately offered to find an apartment in San Diego for the two compatriots, as well as to open a bank account for them and to donate $1,500 as an advance on.

The three would also remain in contact afterwards. Interrogated as part of the investigation into 9/11, Bayoumi allegedly claimed that the meeting with the two future hijackers had been accidental and that his gesture was dictated only by a sense of solidarity with compatriots who were almost completely unable to speak English and unfamiliar with Western culture.

According to the FBI, this version was not credible. Bayoumi was likely a Saudi spy who had been dealing with several al-Qaeda men on US soil. There was therefore a 50% probability that Bayoumi and, therefore, the Riyadh government, had prior knowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.